Using "Play Talking Stick" for situational analysis, needs assessment and coalition building.

I've spent the last few months using the "Play Talking Stick" ethnographic research tool I created for my doctoral and post doc field research into Fair Trade to see how it works in other settings: non profit, academic and private industry.  The research findings from my original study of indigenous women are published in my book, The cultural and political intersection of fair trade and justice (Palgrave, 2013).

Play Talking Stick is presented as an interactive 2 hour workshop where 8-20 participants sit in a circle and, in native American style, pass around a stick that gives permission for the holder to speak their mind about a particular topic while everyone else listens without interruption or comment.  Afterwards, I facilitate participants in processing what was heard and make a list of benefits and challenges the particular topic brings.  I later quantify and analyze the original talking stick data using a TAMS analyzer.  The results are interpreted in context with the facilitated discussion that had followed the talking stick and a report is created.  Play Talking Stick is helpful in identifying needs and successes, building a common language, supporting organizational development and team-building and creating places where synergy, celebration and improvement can happen.

The following is result of Play Talking Stick being used to understand 40 freshman students' experience with a required Quantitative Literacy course they take at Keene State College.  In the next few blogs I will post results of graduate students, faculty and administration talking about their experience with their international graduate school program; association members talking about their membership experience; and private corporation administration talk about challenges of silo-ed operations.  Some of the names of the organizations have been omitted to protect their privacy.

Assessing IQL 101 – Measuring Fair Trade, Sparing 2014

The 41 active students in the spring 2014 IQL Measuring Fair Trade class spoke openly about their semester-long classroom experience in April 2014.  The theme was, “what IQL means to me.”  Students each took a turn speaking about their IQL experience and ideas while others listened.  This monologue was recorded and later coded based on content and emerging themes.  Following the speaking and listening exercise, an interactive discussion of challenges and benefits that students felt from the IQL experience ensued.  Data was recorded and coded for content and context using the Talking Stick method and the TAMS analyzer software.  The Talking Stick method is an ethnographic research tool I developed to identify values and challenges in different cultures/situations.  It enables people to speak openly about their experiences in an empowering, non-threatening way using their own voices and lenses.  This gives legitimacy to their feelings, perspectives and creates a platform upon which further meaning and understanding can be developed.  The following is a quantitative report of the results.

Fig. 1 shows a wordl of the words used and how often. 

(Fig. 1) Wordl

Fig. 2 shows the main categories which emerged through the Talking Stick activity and the relative frequency in which they were spoken.

(Fig. 2)

The category, knowledge included new learning (mostly in the context of Fair Trade), a greater understanding (in the context of previously known statistical concepts which were revisited and further developed) and the application of knowledge to real world situations or in other classes.  Within the knowledge category, 58% of respondents referenced the new learning aspect of it while 27% referenced the building of understanding of already known concepts.  This would be expected in a multi-disciplinary approach towards statistics where there is knowledge building taking place on several levels.

The next category, statistics, referenced in 18% of the monologues, had a positive and negative aspect to it.  Half of respondents felt the interdisciplinary approach of the class diluted the statistical focus of the material and hindered its application elsewhere.  “I am afraid that I do not know enough statistics now, and now there are other classes I have to take, so what do I do?” asked one concerned student.  These students felt that a course more directed towards general statistics would be more effective.  “I feel I could have better spent my time maybe taking a stats class or just a general math course,” explained another student.  On the other hand, half of respondents felt the interdisciplinary approach towards statistics was beneficial.  “I think that I learned a degree of math and how to do real life problems and that it is more enjoyable to learn math because it is applied to something in real life,” explained on student.  Several students mentioned the benefits of learning to make excel graphs and write quantitatively.  As a student stated, “I learned that I could write a quantitative paper.”

The Fair Trade category referenced the topic which the IQL was focused upon.  Fair Trade IQL was approached from the disciplines of economics, sociology and psychology.  It included grounded theory and models contained in the course book, The Cultural and Political Intersection of Fair Trade and Justice (Stenn, 2013).  Students dissected this intersection, using statistics to prove and/or question common beliefs.  All 18 respondents reported a positive experience with learning about Fair Trade, with comments such as “It was very interesting learning about Fair Trade.”  “I really liked learning about Fair Trade, I think it's really important.”  “The fact that we had to learn about Fair Trade was great.” However, as noted in the previous category, some felt it detracted from the statistical nature of the course  as seen in the following statement, “…the integration with the statistics and FT - it was good, but I think it was too much too soon.”

The course pedagogy figured prominently in the Talking Stick results with two tools that students most often spoke of.  One was the use of teachbacks, where three to five member student teams research and present a statistical concept to the class with an interactive presentation that demonstrates the use of the tool (for example calculating the correlation between the distance of each student’s home from campus and their number of trips back home per semester).  For a teachback, each student chooses two statistical topics to present and are grouped with other students also interested in that topic.  The two teachbacks are a shared group grade, based on a rubric, which makes up 20% of the student’s semester average. 

Similar to the split in participant feedback regarding the preference for a pure statistics class versus an interdisciplinary approach as seen in the statistics category, the teachback category was equally split.  Half of the students mentioning teachbacks found them empowering and useful.  “I like the teachbacks because if I can teach something to someone else that's when I know I really have learned how to do it so with my teachbacks I felt better,” explained a student.  Another half found them confusing and hard to follow.  “I thought he teachbacks were not beneficial,” explained a student.  The main point of contention came from the lack of experience that students had in presenting their statistics topic, and the speed (too fast) and lack of detail in some presentations.

The other tool was a portfolio where students presented accumulated assignments in a portfolio for a grade three times per semester.  The portfolio assignments had all been previously reviewed and presented by student teams prior to being put into the portfolio, making the portfolios a presentation of corrected and re-done work.  Each portfolio was worth 10% of the students’ grade.  In addition students were able to continue to re-do portfolios that received poor grades or had incomplete work.  All students liked the portfolio, especially the multiple levels of review.  “I liked the portfolios and I liked that we went over it.  Four percent of students mentioned the use of the KSC online text, Making Fair Comparisons, as being helpful.

To better understand the data shared in the talking stick exercise, a discussion about the challenges and benefits of IQL ensued.  One challenge included creating more support and structure around the teachbacks.  A solution was to use the teachbacks as a review tool rather than a teaching tool.  Another challenge was seen in concerns about the statistics not being general or thorough enough for use in other disciplines.  The resulting solution was the use of worksheets for solving multiple, generic equations and building fluency before engaging in more critical thinking Fair Trade work.  A third challenge related to the way Canvas appeared to students making finding assignments and files confusing.  There were suggestions for better ways to label files and assignment sin Canvas too so they would be easier to find.

The successes students felt IQL brought include the their new knowledge about economics, how businesses operate, Fair Trade, power structures and complexities of trade and its global aspect.  Some said these were topics they would never have pursued on their own to learn and see the extra knowledge as a bonus to also learning stats.  They report feeling confident in how to identify and understand Fair Trade and also to recognize bias and misleading information.  Students reported being able to use critical thinking skills, recognize and balance bias, and build context in which data can be better understood.

In conclusion, using the Talking Stick to understand what IQL means to students enables a deeper understanding of the IQL experience to arise.  This study shows that students are concerned about being successful in college and relay on the IQL course to build the stats groundwork they need at KSC.  While there are many benefits to an interdisciplinary approach to statistics, the data here shows there also needs to be certain structures put in place to make it work effectively.  Made up of largely freshman students, it seems a more traditional structure of learning would work best for IQL students, where lessons are presented in a lecture format with a text and worksheets with enough repetition to enable fluency to develop first.  Then a case study approach that explores and applies stats to an interdisciplinary topic builds the critical thinking and applied learning aspect while also growing students’ knowledge of other subject areas (the “bonus”).  The use of portfolios and multiple reviews seems a good learning tool as are teachbacks, but used as a topic review rather than an introduction. 

For further questions on this report, data, findings or other uses.  Please contact Dr. Tamara Stenn tstenn@keene.edu.